Raising Atlantis
by Geogirl
Summary: what happens when your world collapses? Jack angst (Complete)
1. Catastrophe

Raising Atlantis

By GeoGirl

Rated PG-13

Disclaimer:  I own nothing related to Alias.  I'm just playing and will trade them back for my Barbies when I'm done.

Distribution:  Fanfic.net, Cover Me and anyone else who asks.

Atlantis disappeared from view centuries ago.  Some say it sank into the ocean.  Some say the Gods destroyed it because they were displeased.  Some say it was destroyed by a volcanic blast.  However it happened, a great civilization was lost to the world.  Legend has it that when the world is desperate for peace, understanding and unity, then the Gods will raise Atlantis again. 

Jack sat at the table staring a blank piece of paper.  The fountain pen poised in his hand, several inches above the paper, ready to begin.  But where to begin.  He was sinking, again, and he didn't know how to ask for a life preserver.  He knew whom to ask, but not how.

**Catastrophe (the beginning of the middle)**

He was numb.  He sat on the edge of the pink and white striped comforter, looking at his sleeping daughter and he felt nothing.  The absence of any feeling.  A void no occupied the place where his heart had been.  How could he take care of this precious life before him if he couldn't feel?  

She was dead.  His heart was dead.  Screeching tires and cold water.  Ice and broken metal.  Gone.  Presumed dead.  No traces.  

His hands were frigid, like the ice water that claimed his heart, as he reached to brush a strand of hair away from Sydney's face.  The salt of her tears scraped the pads of his finger.  Cutting, biting.  No blood.  He was too cold; his blood had stopped flowing when the police had arrived at the door.  His body froze as he told his little girl that her mother had gone to heaven.

Brown curls and pink ribbons could not understand.  A teddy bear could not console.  A hug could not comfort.  Where is heaven, Daddy?  Why can't we go there too?  I want Mommy.  I WANT mommy.  MOMMY!  Sobs and hiccups and crumpled tissues filled the hours before he carried the unconscious child to bed.  

Why.  When.  How.  Where.  Questions filled his mind, but his lips refused to work.  He looked to the heavens and wished he were a praying man.  Wished he knew the right way to ask the questions.  Wished the angels would take away the cold that surrounded him and bring back the sunshine that was her smile.

Days merged to weeks and the cold did not subside.

Salty tears and lopsided pigtails looked at him with accusation and disbelief.  Daddy could do anything.  Why couldn't he bring back Mommy from heaven?  He found himself lying in a too small bed, half covered with pink and white stripes most every night.  Sleep never found him, only a replay of their life on the backs of his eyelids.  Blurry black and white tales of happiness.  The color of her eyes and lips stood out against the grayness.  

Black clothes and silences from everyone.  Casseroles in the freezer from well meaning friends and neighbors. He tried to carry on for Sydney but he didn't know how.  He went home everyday to a crying child who could not believe that Daddy would come home every day.  She held on so tight to his neck for what seemed like hours.  Her tears seeped into all of his clothes.   The nanny gave sympathetic glances as she pried a sobbing six year old from his embrace. 

Soon expensive scotch became his friend, his confidant and his consoler.  It replaced little brown eyes full of sorrow and little girl hugs.  It helped fill the void.  It helped him forget smiling brown eyes, red lips and sighs in the darkness.  With the amber liquid came the hard stare of Arvin.  How did Arvin became a fixture in his misery?  Scotch didn't care, he didn't care.  Fuzzy, blurry, numb.

Then came the whispers.  The mysterious phone calls.  The veiled questions at work, how dare they.  Why were they doing this?  

_Sir, I think you should call home and tell the nanny that you had to go out of town on business and will be gone for several days?_

_Why, where am I going?_

_Sir would you please follow me?_

_Tell me what is going on?  Where are you taking me?_

_Mr. Bristow, we have some questions for you.  Some questions about your wife._

_My wife.  What kind of questions?  She's dead, or didn't you get the memo.  I just lost my wife and you want to ask questions about her.  What kind of sick game is this?_

_Please calm down Mr. Bristow.  It would be better for you if you cooperate._

The room was white and stark and filled with light, only one table and two chairs.  Day after day, the edges blurred into one another.  Question upon question.  He didn't have the right answers.  More and more questions and accusations were hurled at him.  Manila folders appeared against the white table, staring, accusing, poking through the blurry edges.  He felt like he was sinking.  Sinking to the bottom of the ocean.  But he would soon find out it was only the beginning.


	2. Sinking

**Sinking**

Traitor they called him.  Stab in the heart and spit in his face.  He, a traitor, selling lives and information to Russia.  Betraying all he held dear to the Red Devil.  He could not make them believe; they did not want to hear his truth.  He truth remained constant.  They could not accept his truth.  TRUTH.  What a funny word.  

And Arvin, the snake camouflaged in the grass, playing both sides.  His friend and his confessor.  His sympathy and his accuser, looking for open wounds and inserting red-hot pokers.  Twisting and turning, red-hot pain rushes over his soul in waves.  Whispers and pats on the back urging him to be cooperative for Sydney's sake.  The snake would deliver stories, drawing and pictures of and from his little girl, tempting him with a reunion to the only good part of him left.  All he needed to do was agree, give in and become the traitor that they supposed him to be.

Books with mysterious writing, dead agents, missing papers; what did he know!  Documents and photographs were placed before him to identify.  Who were his contacts, what were the signals, where were the codes?  There had to be money, where was it hidden?  Maps and diagrams were drawn on large pieces of paper.  He talked for minutes, hours and days and no one heard a word he said.  

A lonely room.  Artificial light and lumpy mattress and silence.  No swirls of crayon on construction paper.  No bedtime stories nestled in pink and white safety.  No little girl hugs and kisses and breakfast with Daddy.  Six months alone.  Six months alone.

First he tried to get paper and pencil to write his thoughts.  No, too dangerous; he was a trained killer.  He had killed his colleagues.  No privileges for the traitor.  Books, a chessboard, a picture of his daughter were all denied.  Gray walls shouted at him.  Gray walls with eyes judged him.  Gray walls convicted him without hearing a word he said.  

He began playing chess in his mind to stay sharp.  Reciting Keats, Kennedy and poetry learned as a child.  Singing nursery rhymes and snippets of songs.  He dissected the Red threat.  He strategized and won the Cuban Missile Crisis.  He decided that it wasn't a lone gunman after all.  He determined where the weaknesses in the government system were; and recollected the decisive victories in World War Two.  He quoted all of Hamlet.  He recited the periodic table and expounded on game theory.  He re-defended his doctorate to the gray walls and camera eyes.  He occupied space and time, but lived in neither.  He resisted retreat, he shied away from dreams; seducing like the sirens call.    

He described Sydney with excruciating detail.  She tended to play with her hair when concentrating.  Her laugh reminded him of his mother.  The stubborn set of her chin was a reflection of his own and his father's.  He remembered attending little girl tea parties with water and cookies and stuffed animals.  She loved the "Sgt. Pepper and the Lonely Hearts Club Band" album and had to listen to it at least once per day.  He could feel her standing on his shoes, whispering little girl secrets in his ear.  How she would only eat red Popsicles and hated creamed corn.  He could see her swirling around the living room to the Glenn Miller orchestra and tossing multi-colored leaves in the air.   He could see him and her (because he had stopped saying her name months ago) discovering that Sydney could read at the age of four.  He recalled pictures of Sydney learning to walk by pushing an overturned laundry basket around the living room floor.

Only one path was not explored, she whose name could not be spoken.  He had no perspective; only memories, unreliable and tainted.  Soon sleepless hours wore at his resistance.  He had reached his breaking point; he would accept their truth.  He decided bravery wasn't so brave after all. 

One last hour of resistance, one last line drawn in the sand, one more Alamo before the slaughter.  He became brave one day; there was meatloaf and mash potatoes and carrots.  He hated cooked carrots.  Laura knew.  Laura knew.  Laura KNEW.  

Then the tide changed.

And the waves crashed over him more brutal than before.  Not her, of the sparkling eyes and red lips.  Not her of the sighs in the dark and bright smiles.  Not him at all but her; an undertow for a drowning man.  Sinking further and further.

And his blood began to simmer and the truth floated to the top.  Illusion and misdirection.  He had been masterfully deceived.  The game player had been played, and he bled again.  Icy cold water thrown in his face.

And he began to feel again, little by little.  Sorrow, enveloping and gray.  His baby, oh his poor baby.  What was to become of her?  How could he look at her, with the same eyes and wide smile and not begin to thaw and then ache all over again?    

Sorrow turned on its head.  It evolved, mutated, and broke out of the cocoon into a winged avenger.  Powerful hate.  Hate for those accusers, hate for the condescension of the snake, hate for his jailers.  Contempt, sharp and bitter.  And he drank of the wine of emotion, like a dehydrated man.  He ate at the banquet of rage and revenge, cold and plotting.  Sinking slowly into the whirlpool of hate for shining brown eyes and red lips and sighs in the dark.

And Laura died and he died inside again.  


	3. Staring Up from the Bottom of the Ocean

Staring Up From the Bottom of the Ocean (the end of the middle) 

The black sedan dropped him in front of his house and he stood at the end of the sidewalk for minutes, hours, days; he wasn't sure.  Hesitation, uncertainty, these were unfamiliar to him.  Did he belong here any more, this new Jack that six months alone had forged?  Then the door burst open and a blur of yellow and brown crashed into his arms.  They twirled around in unison, laughing and crying.

He shook his head to dispel the vision and slowly walked to the front door.  Should he knock, should he ring the bell or should he just walk in?  Again, he wasn't sure.  Was this to be a new pattern?  His hand raised, poised to knock and paused.  A cold shiver of a ghost passed by; reminding him of the evil that once occupied this house and made a mockery of his home.  He drew a cleansing breath.  Then his hand dropped, grabbed the knob and pushed open to door to her sanctuary.

He could hear laughter in the kitchen; little girl giggles and more mature laughter.  Happy, she was happy.  He thanked the heavens.  Did she even miss him?  He looked around and noticed nothing had changed.  Irina (now the monster had its true name) was everywhere, in the curtains hanging over the windows, in the photographs on the side tables, in the air.  Deceiver and deceived, intertwined in the air with the smell of baking.

His feet began to move without conscious effort to the rear of the house, laughter pulling him along like a magnet.  He willed himself to be strong.  He saw the back of Sydney, in flour-covered overalls, making cookies with the nanny.  He caught the older woman's eyes and raised a finger to his lips.  He wanted to watch for a moment longer.  Smell the little girl smell of talcum powder, baby shampoo and sunshine.  His baby had changed, she was a bit taller and her hair was longer, with sun-kissed tips.  Sydney chatted away, oblivious, slipping into bad Spanish to bring a smile to both of the adults in the room.  

Then the nanny bent down and pointed for Sydney to look over her shoulder.  In one swift movement, she turned and was in his arms.  Planets aligned and the sun shone and, for one wonderful moment, six months were erased in one word "Daddy".

A crack opened in the armor he had crafted as if a splinter were driven with a sledgehammer.  Tears came to his eyes, unbidden, brimming over the edges.  Little girl kisses rained over his face and he welcomed it as a cloudburst on a steamy summer day.  His baby, his baby, HIS.  His life preserver, his calm in the storm, his security blanket of brown curls and delicate, shimmering eyes.

Question upon question she asked, barely able to breathe between each.  Where were you Daddy?  Why didn't you call me?  Did you miss me?  Did you bring me a present?  And then the words that were his salvation for six months, "I love you Daddy".  And he was saved, if only for the moment.  And the joy of that knowledge warmed his heart, and then flew away.

Because he knew that soon, very soon, he would need to repair his armor and retreat.  He had a mission.  And sadly, Sydney would be the unwilling sacrifice.  And he wept inside as she grabbed his hand and pulled him through the house to her pink and white room.

Days turned to months and seasons came and went and he slowly repaired the armor.  Little by little the walls were re-built.  Work and scotch were the cement, binding and almost impenetrable, a siege on his heart.  Only when Sydney was around did the white flag of truce come out.  And he survived there under the ocean of betrayal and sorrow, like Poseidon ruling the ocean depths. 

And then the snake returned to awaken the winged avenger sleeping in his soul.  The Evil One may not be dead after all Arvin reveled.  And again the taste of rage and revenge felt good on his tongue.  A new mission was born, of retribution and protection.  His daughter would never know of the Evil One.  She would always believe in the illusion.  He could never break her heart as his had been broken.  Revenge and retaliation dripped on his mouth and the juice was sweet as ripe summer berries.  If he ever saw the Evil One again, if he ever…

What was once leather and chain mail now became body armor of strongest steel.  As the years progressed it began to repel the one thing that could break through.  For as Sydney grew up, the saintliness of her mother seemed to increase.  He became elusive; to protect her and to protect what was left of him.  He stood on the periphery of her life and though he wished he could have changed it, he would not.  It was safer that way, whether for her or him, he lost track of long ago.  

His life became centered on work and Sydney.  His personal life was minimal.  At first he was too devastated to even think of getting close to anyone.  Eventually he became so lonely that he sought out companionship.  Loneliness was a strong drug that would occasionally overcome the rage that encompassed his heart.  Once in a while, he would seek the company of the mother of one of Sydney's friends; the single ones, of course.  He had enough respect for himself and these women to not ruin a marriage.  These were all short-term relationships, devoid of real romantic attachment.  A stipulation he made very clear at the beginning of each relationship.  Then once, he made the mistake of bringing one of his companions home and Sydney's reaction was unprecedented.  

Soon, he switched to the women at work.  He was known as a gentleman, who treated his dates regally.  The best restaurants, expensive gifts, a wonderful date, but nothing more.  The consensus was that he never rebounded after the death of his wife; and he let them believe the gossip.  Never would they know that he could never open himself to anyone, he was too afraid.   

The milestones of Sydney growing into womanhood passed by as blurry roadside markers.  Dances and boyfriends and school plays passed whether he was in town to acknowledge them or not.  He did manage to see her graduate valedictorian.  Her speech made him cry in the solitude of his bedroom, hours later.  

Then independence and college and his little girl no more, his salvation was gone.  His one last flicker of humanity was a buried ember under the ashes that remained on his heart.

Unbeknownst to him, the snake returned and tempted Sydney with forbidden fruit.  It was too late when he finally realized.  He wept then for he knew that one day she would find out the truth and all that he had done to prevent her ever knowing would be revealed.  And it would devastate her, like the destruction of his Atlantis years ago.  


	4. Wading In

**Wading in (the beginning)**

He remembered a hazy summer day, lunch at the park near the office.  The world seemed washed is a cool yellow haze, full or promise and hope.  He ate his lunch admiring all that went on around him.  His training taught him to notice the mundane and normal around him.  The direction the clouds moved.  The pattern of the shadows made by the migrating sun.  Most people tended to walk on the right side of the pathways and sidewalks.  Lovers tended to walk closer, touch more and look at each other more when talking.  Some people tend to talk with their hands; others strove to keep their hands quiet.  Children, while playing, would occasionally look over at their parents just to be reassured that they were still there.  The way the confident and the timid carry themselves.  The way some people are always checking their surroundings and the way some completely ignore the pageantry around them.

A wayward scarf caught by the sudden breeze, a flash of red and blue on the wind.  And a beautiful woman trying to catch the streaming silk.  The scarf falling out of the current near his feet.  The feel of cool silk on his fingers and the scent of roses.   She played damsel in distress and he played knight in shining armor.   Her red lipstick against pale skin.  Her shining brown hair barely contained by a low barrette.  How long had she studied him before enacting her plan?  How did she know of his chivalry?  Was it orchestrated so well that a game player could not even recognize the game?

She offered a hand and a cup of coffee as payment for his assistance.  The boldness of her offer caught him unaware and he smiled in response.  She returned the smile, almost.  She, a student on holiday, learning of the capital city.  He, a fairly new employee of the government, with no social life, too new to know and too reserved to be approachable.  She commented on his smile, making him laugh, not an easy feat.  She asked for a tour guide, he asked for dinner.  Wine and pasta and he was mesmerized.

She was everything his previous girlfriends were not.  Bold and decisive, daring and opinionated.  She would debate for hours with him.  She was finishing her degree in literature, in hopes of teaching at the college level.  Her knowledge of the world amazed him.  Her adamant disbelief in God challenged him.  In times of strong disagreement or when she was talking so fast to make a point, he noticed an accent.  Very slight, but noticeable.  Her explanation was that her grandparents, who fled Russia to France following during the Bolshevik Revolution, raised her.  Her parents had died shortly after she was born during World War Two and her grandparents had immigrated to the United States following the war.  They would only spoke Russian at home.  It seemed the reasonable explanation; he even, eventually, met the grandmother.   Who was he to question what bright eyes and red lips told him?

She kept him up late with coffee and poetry.  They explored the undiscovered parts of the City together.   The discussions and arguments were passionate and lively.  She was the pursuer and he was the pursued and he enjoyed that.  She was passionate and their lovemaking bold.  She did not know fear, laughed a danger; a heady brew.

She became a fixture in his life and his friends adored her.  Arvin was completely enthralled and barely contained jealousy.   Arvin made her bristle like a startled cat.  He sniffed around and she hissed him away.  Oil and water, but he didn't care.  Soon, he couldn't imagine his life without her.  There in the park, where they had first met, on a hazy, sunny summer day he asked for her hand.  She accepted, but no tears.  Shouldn't she have cried, that was what all his friends' wives had done?  But she was not like them at all, cut from a different mold.  

A small wedding amidst friends and family.  A long week in the Poconos, where they never left the room.  Soon they moved to accommodate his new position and she obtained a job teaching literature.  They were happy, he thought.     


	5. Riding the Waves

**Riding the Waves (the end of the beginning)**

Year One.

The one adjective Jack would have never used for himself, she used for him constantly that first year.  Romantic.  And he loved it.  He enjoyed showing her the depth of his devotion to her.  It made him giddy; another word he would have never used for himself.  He heard the envious whispers of the secretarial pool, how they wish their husbands were more like him.  He was amazed by his reaction; he relished at being married.   He had a standing account at the local florist and was in the habit of sending flowers to the department just because.  The cards always contained a line or two from Shakespeare's sonnets, unsigned of course.

A cozy one-bedroom apartment was soon upgraded to a little bungalow on the edges of town.  She made curtains and framed photographs.  Together they planted a rose garden in the back yard.  He always would acquaint the smell of roses on a summer day with her and happy times.  Strolling the neighborhood, hand in hand, buying lemonade from every stand in sight.  Falling asleep together in the hammock under the trees on a Sunday afternoon.  

Her hair mesmerized him; it had a life of its own.  And he could watch her mouth form words for hours on end.  How he got breathless when she emerged, still damp and warm, from a bath.  He was amazed that the slightest touch of her fingertips could arouse him and the he ached for her when she was not around.   He began to memorize her range of smiles.   Her laughter made him dizzy and elicited the most delightful daydreams.  Her sadness brought forth a powerful protective side; one that he never knew existed.  He grew wary of the soft voice, which belied anger and frustration.

She would throw dinner parties for the staff of the English Department.  He would have a few select work colleagues over for barbeque.  They settled into married easily, without many of the usual ups and downs.  Life was wonderful and he was in love.    

Their first Christmas, sipping champagne as they exchanged gifts.  He bought her a book of French poetry and read it to her.  She bought him a pair of sterling and onyx cufflinks, which she presented to him by wearing one of his crisp white office shirts and nothing else.  They made love all day long in front of the fireplace, to the twinkling lights of the Christmas tree.  How, at dark, they realized that they hadn't eaten all day and desperately search the pantry for something to eat.  Scrambled eggs and tinned peaches was their first Christmas dinner.  

Years Two and Three

He was surprised when the headiness of the first year did not wane.  The next few years brought more memories, most happy.  A few sad.  Her grandmother died of a broken heart; she had been separated from her Cyril for too long.  He consoled her in her grief and he grieved with her.  He briefly wrestled with the thought of losing her one day and he was overwhelmed with sadness.  He prayed that he would die first because he knew he couldn't live without her.

The garden flourished and the house became more of a home.  They went on dates to the drive-in movie, acting worse than the teenagers in the surrounding cars.  They explored the museums and antique shops within a two-hour drive.  Many summer afternoons were wasted away in the hammock.  Drinking and smoking and hanging with friends, the typical married couple.

For their first anniversary he took her to Niagara Falls.  They spent it just as they spent their honeymoon, and never even saw the Falls except on the drive home.

He started taking her on trips, to New York, Florida, the beaches up and down the eastern coast.   A rented boat was the source of numerous jokes and revealed her paralyzing fear of deep water.  She wouldn't even walk down the dock to where the sailboat was tied.  

He would sneak out of the office and sit through her lectures at the college.  Her lectures on the Russian authors were enthralling; she seemed to understand the pain and self-sacrifice that was common to most of the stories.  Anna Karenina.  Dr. Zhivago.  War and Peace.  It was if she had the same psyche, the same temperament just through the inheritance of her genes.

There were times that she worried him, made him uneasy.  They were fleeting, momentary but present nonetheless.  It was if she were outside of herself; watching her body do unspeakable things.  He could sense guilt and sadness; none of which she ever explained.  She would stare off into the abyss for minutes, a single tear in the corner of her eye.  Then her face would change, the storm rolled in and it became hard and unrelenting.  Then she would soften, as if baptized by the rain, and come back to the wife he adored.  He once asked and she walked away.  He would never do that again.

Then the winds of change blew in, hard and driving like a hurricane.  Arvin.  Weasel, snake, wolf, predator, scavenger. Now his supervisor, directing his studies.  First it was innocent; develop tests used to identify likely candidates for the CIA.  Look at coordination, spatial acuity, mental dexterity, decision-making skills.  Puzzles and scenarios and questionnaires.  He enjoyed this, believed he was playing a significant part in the protection of the country he held dear.  Then things began to twist in an amoral direction.  Protests, loud and quiet.  Forceful and subtle.  Psychological warfare.  Training of young minds; he would not use children like that.   Push and pull and convince.  It will help us; we have to stay ahead of the Russians; protect America.  Relenting because there was no other way to survive.  And then it became more horrendous.

He came home to a door sitting open.  Scared, he ran through the house and found her sitting on the ground in the middle of the rose garden crying.  Fear, helplessness, worry ran through his mind.  Was she hurt, could he fix it?  At that moment, he would have done ANYTHING to make her stop hurting.  He sat down beside her and she crashed into his arms, sobbing.  Then she said the words and he was stunned.  Then he felt a warmth envelop him, as he never had before her and before this.  He cried.  

They sat there in the rose garden, one celebrating, and one fearing.  A baby.  They were to be parents.  

And his whole life changed again.


	6. Riding the Waves Part 2

**Riding the Waves (Part Two)   **

Year Four

She worried him.  Granted neither of them knew the slightest thing about pregnancies or babies, but her reaction did not seem right.  He was so incredibly happy, more than he ever thought he could be.  She was not.  Listless, despondent, sad were all more appropriate descriptions.  She would not eat, claiming morning sickness.  She did not blossom like mother's to be normally would.  Months went by and her mood did not change.  It just didn't seem right, and he consulted the doctor.  The doctor assured him that it was normal, some women got a little depressed during pregnancy.  

He tried to entice her with buying clothes and furniture and new baby things.  Rattles and cribs, rocking chairs and rocking horses.  She was half-hearted, at best, detached at its worst.  They painted the nursery a sunny yellow and put up white eyelet curtains.  He hoped the color was an omen to their future.  He would come home every night, when he was able, and kiss her and kiss her stomach, their baby.  The anticipation increased daily and he felt ready to be a father.  Father, that word filled him with joy and wonder and made him just a little scared.  Finally, around the eighth month, her mood changed.  She finally seemed happy about the prospect of being a mother.  He would watch her caress her rounded stomach and talk to their daughter.  At least he envisioned a daughter in his dreams.  One with her wide smile and shining eyes.

And she came on a rainy day in April, with a loud wail announcing her presence.  His daughter, Sydney.  He spent hours looking in the hospital nursery window, amazed by this small creature that was the combination of the best parts of the two of them.  She was only hours old and he was completely enthralled.  He drank of her new baby smell and it was more intoxicating than the finest scotch.  He longed to remain drunk on her smell as long as he lived.  Her eyes were so trusting and she was so small and he never felt more protective.  After a crash coarse in baby care and four days to recuperate and become acquainted with Sydney, they took her home and a new adventure began.  A family.

They survived on instinct and Dr. Spock, as neither was experienced with babies.  They could not sleep, could not eat, the world revolved around Sydney's wants and needs.  It was difficult and it took its toll on all of them.  He hated to leave his girls to go to work and counted the minutes until he could return to them.  He hired a maid to come in and help where she could.  Then a routine was established and things began to get better.  Or so he thought.

He woke one night to a screaming baby and an empty bed.  Groggily he stumbled to the baby's room to see her standing over the crib just starring at the wailing baby.  She did not reach to pick Sydney up, but stared with that hard look of hers.  He could not read her, rigid as a statue with unblinking eyes.  And he was afraid for their daughter.  He swooped in and picked up the crying baby and sat in the rocking chair.  She looked at him and through him with dark eyes, hard and cold, turned and walked out of the room.  Silent tears streamed down his face as he and his daughter rocked to the sounds of the night.  He did not return Sydney to her crib for he was never more afraid than he was that night.

They never spoke of that night and slowly things improved.  She became a doting mother and loving wife again.  He watched her closely for months, looking for a reoccurrence of what he saw that night.  It never returned and he was relieved.  

Years Five through Ten

The next year was a blur of firsts.  First time to roll over, first time to sit unaided, first time to crawl and first tooth.  Dr. Spock was their best friend and they documented everything.  He became an avid photographer and would take rolls and rolls of film documenting every step in Sydney's development.  Sydney was a bright happy baby.  She seemed to develop quickly and he attributed that to the combination of superior genes.  They, as a family, would take walks around the neighborhood and all the neighbors cooed at Sydney.  

Sydney preferred the sound of her father's voice when trying to fall asleep, so a new routine was established.  He would rock her and tell her of his day.  He was enraptured that he could soothe Sydney with just the sound of his voice.  The world revolved and evolved with his daughter and these were times that he treasured.  

The first year sped by like a freight train and they celebrated the milestone with white cake and candles.  He bought his wife a ruby ring to thank her for filling his heart with such love.  He was totally captivated by his two girls and hoped that it would always remain that way.  

This happiness overshadowed all of the worrisome events at work and in the world.  He shielded himself the best he could and tried to remain as naïve as possible to the evil which surrounded him.  

She returned to teaching, which seemed to infuse her with a renewed lightness.  He came to the conclusion that although she loved Sydney, she needed work outside of the home.  Accommodations were made and a nanny was hired.  She began attending teaching seminars on a fairly regular basis.  She seemed to enjoy them, but always returned a little detached, a little hard.  She claimed that the seminars were taxing, but informative.  Within a day or two of returning, she was often restored to her former self.

The next few years continued the speeding progression from babyhood to toddler to little girl.   Sydney's childhood was a carefree as they could make it.  She had a wonderful imagination and loved to play dress-up.  She colored the walls and tried to cut her own hair.  She ate paste and play dough.  She played on the swings and scraped her knees.  She progressed from a tricycle to a two-wheeler, one with a pink seat and streamers on the handlebars.  She took dance class and spent hours at the library.  They made sure that their daughter had everything she needed and Sydney would constantly amaze them with her knowledge, imagination and development.  Truly, they had a gifted child and they did all they could to encourage everything Sydney did.

They took vacations when their schedules permitted; their favorite place was the beach.  They could sit for hours on end at the beach, watching the waves and building sand castles.  They rented bicycles and rode up and down the shore.  They ate dinner at the out of the way diners.  They bought silly shell trinkets and post cards.  

Work responsibilities increased and evolved.  He tried his best to remove himself from all that he felt was amoral, but as in all things, he was compromised.  Arvin.  Project Christmas was born and he felt the inhumanity of it and also felt a lack of control over the project.  First it was a few questions on the IQ test.  Then it was puzzles to determine spatial acuity.  Somewhere along the way it evolved into a summer camp for those who scored well on the IQ test.  He felt it was perverse and wrong.  He heard the Russians were doing similar things and that they were interested in obtaining information about his results.  The classified information was kept with him at all times, in one form or another.  He figured that this was the best way to control access.  Little did he know.

As footprints spoil the virgin snow, their idyllic life came to a screeching halt.  Ice and twisted metal unraveled the fabric of his life.


	7. Rising Slowly From The Depths

**Rising Slowly from the Depths**

Three floors and twenty years separated them, yet he could still feel her as if she was holding his hand.  And that scared him.  He couldn't remember being scared like that for a long time.  Like grains of sand under his skin, she made her presence known, and he started to bleed just a little.  Just seeing her opened all of the scars he thought had healed.  The camera did not lie about her; it still showed her eyes, the center of her power.  He hoped that he was strong enough to endure; he prayed that he and Sydney could survive.

He stared at the monitors for hours watching as she first prowled through the cell like a caged tiger.  He watched her as she settled into disquieting calm, disturbing time around her.  He felt her eyes bore into him as she stared into the camera.   He kept searching her face to see if there was any of Laura left, any glimmer remaining of what he had loved.  He was afraid of finding the remnants; but with morbid curiosity, he kept looking.  

So, in preparation, he began to repair the armor that had lasted for twenty years, hammering out the dents, repairing the weak spots.  He shined it until it was blinding.  For he knew that he would have to fight again.

He knew that Sydney's armor was not ready; that it needed reinforcements.  However, she could not hear the advise of those previously wounded.  She seemed to hold onto the hope that the mother of that six-year-old still remained, despite the evil that inhabited the same shell.  He watched her stride into battle with belief on her side, visions of St. Joan.  He hoped that her ending was not the same.   He still watched when she returned bruised and damaged, but not conquered.  And he celebrated that small victory.  He wanted to reach out and show her the way to reinforce her armor, to point out the ways of the Evil One, to give her ammunition for the next encounter.  But he could not make her hear him, not yet.

The war raged on and he envisioned himself as St. George to slay the dragon as the sound of scraping metal preceded his path to doom or salvation.  The walk to her cell seemed to stretch on forever, like the illusions from a fun house at the carnival.  Then he saw her behind the glass.  Her eyes were not shining but hardened with hatred and pain.  Her smiling red lips were twenty years gone, now a sharp line.  Her mesmerizing hair was the same, and he steeled himself against its lure.  Her words pierced and stung and cut small holes into the armor.  He still felt her under his skin and she still smelled of roses.  She was Merlin and Lucifer; sorcerer and gypsy; witch and angel.  Could he survive her return?

She had learned much in twenty years.  He could see that her game playing skills were heightened and honed.  He now knew the game and he fully engaged in the contest.  This time it wasn't merely a contest between countries and philosophies.  This time it was personal; it was a death match.  The prize was Sydney's soul.  He hoped that Sydney was ready and hoped that his unwitting and innocent ally, Vaughn, was up for a war.  It would be bloody.  

His relationship with Sydney had been improving.  She was leaning to trust him and he was beginning to need to be open with her.  He held a small glimmer of hope that soon things could get somewhere nearer to normal.  As normal as a spy's life could be.  As normal as a Bristow's life could be.  Atlantis was on the rise.

And then catastrophe.  This one was as wounding and damaging as the first.  What he had done, both in the present and in the past, came to haunt him and tore at the burgeoning relationship between father and daughter.  What he had done to protect Sydney was done out of love; but she didn't see that.  She was too injured by his actions to see the evidence.  His actions were the best ways in which he felt he could protect her, the most outward measure of his love he could show.  But it backfired, and now Sydney was wounded even more by what he had done, than by what her mother had done.  He ached for her understanding and forgiveness.

And Jack sat at the table staring a blank piece of paper.  The fountain pen poised in his hand, several inches above the paper ready to begin.  But where to begin?  He was sinking, again because of his actions, and he didn't know how to ask for a life preserver.  He knew whom to ask, but not how.  

He wanted to tell Sydney of the entire story, the good and the bad.  She deserved to know.  He hoped that with time, faith, courage and love, she could help his ascent to the surface.  She could help him find that portion of himself he lost years ago.  And, just maybe, he could break through the waves and see the sun.  

And somehow, in the future, with Sydney's help, he could Raise Atlantis again and be saved.

A/N:  I've decided to end this here because I've reached a point where I don't want to contradict or compromise the unfolding story JJ and company have in store for us.  Plus, my muse is pushing me in other directions.  I am overwhelmed by the response to this story; you've brought tears to my eyes more than once with your kindness.  

Thank you, thank you, and thank you.  

GeoGirl


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